The Efficacy of Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Iranian Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder on Their Social Skills and Willingness to Communicate.

Objectives
This applied research is the first practical study of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) to students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Iran. We examined the effect of a well-designed foreign language learning setting in facilitation of social skills and willingness to communicate in children with ASD.


Materials & Methods
A mixed-method research design was used. Using stratified sampling, a limited sample of 18 students were chosen from Kerman Province, southeastern Iran in 2014 categorized in three levels of ASD for each group of experimental and control; matched pairs were used to ensure homogeneity of participants in two groups. Each participant received 15 sessions with totaling 67 h of language learning. First 10 sessions were in the form of tutorials and the last 5 sessions were held in the form of paired classes with a peer. Before and after the sessions, caregivers and parents completed a questionnaire on students' social skills; the English instructor also rated participants' willingness to communicate.


Results
Teaching a foreign language had a positive main effect on social skills from caregivers' and parents' view compared to those of controls, significantly (P<0.05). From the instructor's view, there was additionally a significant improvement in the students with ASD's willingness to communicate in classroom settings compared to the control group (P<0.05).


Conclusion
Optimum foreign language pedagogy for students with ASD is applied as an effective context enhancing children's capabilities in social skills and willingness to communicate, provoked through a motivational foreign setting modulation in a novel environment. Suggestions on enhancing joint attention during the curriculum are provided.


Introduction
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong neuro-biological disease that has drastically increased with an incompatible rise during the past three decades (1). The main reason for considering autism as a spectrum disorder is due to its variant ranges, the major of which would fluctuate from communication deficiency, e.g. giving an unsuitable response in conversations, misunderstanding nonverbal communications or problems with building up new friendships; to unduly repetitive actions, oversensitivity to environmental changes, or exaggerated focus on irrelevant items (2). The neurobiology of ASD is difficult to define, due to the neurodevelopmental characters, and the large phenotypic heterogeneity of individuals with ASD (3). They often suffer from comorbid disorders, particularly social anxiety disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (4).
Children with autism lack appropriate social skills (SS) which result in restricted social interaction (5). Verbal and non-verbal social behaviors are essential to effectively engage in interpersonal communication. Broadly, these skills can be divided into seven domains including interaction, communication, cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, engagement, and selfcontrol (6).
One of the exceptional cases, when a child with ASD is required to deal with a compulsory conversation to enhance his SS, happens in a language classroom. For children with autism, classroom settings can pose particular challenges when conversing with classmates is expected.
Foreign language classrooms present a unique challenge and opportunity; however, because all students will be communicating in a way that is new to them (so all students regardless of ability face some challenges), for children with autism whose language is also impaired the foreign language environment may compound the social obstacles.
Yet these environments create possibilities for students with autism. Many pupils with ASD, as less extroverted students, suffer from "difficulties relating to others and presenting their own selves adequately due to their limited communicative competence", which directly influences their progress (7). One of the fundamental components of instruction for children with autism is to create opportunities for social interaction and for them to practice their social skills. Throughout the past few decades, educational research has advanced immensely in areas such as special education and language learning (8-10).
Willingness to communicate (WTC) was first defined as "an individual's volitional inclination toward actively engaging in the act of communication in a specific situation, which can vary according to interlocutor (s), topic, and conversational context, among other potential situational variables" (11). This process is tangible as each student is motivated by the class design and expresses signs of WTC in different manners.
The conceptual framework of this study was the cognitive development approach of Vygotsky. analysis of fundamental factors required in a language classroom for students with ASD (16)(17)(18)(19). There are studies which explore well-rounded environments for foreign language learning by students with ASD; accordingly, our study not activates a well-designed curriculum for students with ASD but also practices on enhancing their social skills through conversation modeling (20,21).
Despite the public concern about the unexplained growth of ASD (22) We aimed to explore how a foreign language learning coursework influences SS in learners with ASD. This provides learning opportunities for students to acquire WTC as well as a new language (25,26).

Participants
Participants were chosen from Imam Ali Autism The demographic and clinical information of each participant is present in Table 1.
Both parents and caregivers were included to fill questionnaires and report children's social behaviors, the reason for holding these two groups for answering the questionnaires was because they spent the most amount of time with each individual and therefore had dynamic aspect of individual's socialization. The English instructor as well as a clinical psychologist also observed the process of language courses and verified homogeneity of the syllabus design and the accuracy of reported behaviors.

Ethical issues
Before the sessions started, the researchers obtained informed consent from each participant's parents.
All the sessions were recorded and were provided   According to students' GARS scores, each experimental and control group was divided into three levels of low, mild and severe (n=3). Symbol (*) shows a t-tests student statistical analysis between experimental and control group (*P<0.05, **P<0.01 and ***P<0.001). Symbol (#) shows a Paired t-test student statistical analysis between control and experimental group before and after the treatment (#P<0.05, ##P<0.01 and ###P<0.001).    voice processing and therefore, lead to a leap in the interpersonal communication; this hypothetical issue would, therefore, require further studies.
In conclusion, as there is a rapid rise in the population of children with autism, the need to motivate higher standards in education requires an interdisciplinary approach including not only the teachers or trainers but also psychologists and speech therapists to monitor the process.